If You Were With Me Tonight
by Bittersweet x
Summary: Andromeda writes Sirius a letter. Years later, he responds. Two-shot. I disclaim all lyrics from 'May Angels Lead You In'.  And Harry Potter. That too.
1. Chapter 1

_If You Were With Me Tonight_

_ Dear Sirius.._

Andromeda sighed and shook her head. This was _ridiculous. _Writing to a cousin who was locked up in highest security for a crime all evidence pointed to him, so she couldn't even moan that it was a wrong-doing, was completely stupid.

"You don't even have to send it," Ted had said. "Just write to him. Pour out your feelings. Come on, 'Dromeda, you've been a mess lately."

She _had _been completely depressed about pretty much everything these days. Who could blame her? Her cousin, her favorite relative in the entire world, the only relative that no longer treated her like a spot of dirt on the tip of her shoe..

_I never said thank you for that.._

Without meaning to, Andromeda was writing. And then it all came pouring out.

After half an hour, she set down her quill, tears rolling down her face, and read over the letter.

_Dear Sirius.._

_Sirius, dear Sirius. I never said thank you for that, for not treating me like a piece of nothing just for getting sorted into Ravenclaw, just for falling in love. I never said thank you and now I never will. Because you're gone, far away on a fortress, suffering a fate worse than death._

_ But my God, Sirius, how could you do such a STUPID thing?_

_ I always trusted you, you know. I always knew you were the only one who really, truly, absolutely, completely loved me without a doubt, even if I DID marry a Muggle-born, and get sorted into Ravenclaw, and other junk that the rest of them blamed me for. You were so against You Know Who. You really did think that we were all equal. When you talked about it, I saw it in your eyes. You weren't faking that emotion. _

_ But you were._

_ And all along you were working for him._

_ They were your best friends, Sirius._

_ Part of me still doesn't believe it, still doesn't believe you COULD do something that idiotic. But then I think that all the clues point it out, and no matter how hard I try I can't figure out a way out of this. I always got you out of trouble, didn't I? I always made up a story for your mum or my mum or Slughorn or McGonagall. But I can't find any proof for you this time. And don't say I didn't try. Sirius, ever since I found out I've been in denial, looking for proof that it wasn't you, but I can't Sirius, I can't! It was you! There's no other possibility! WHY, Sirius? WHY?_

_ Can't you see that you _aren't _just hurting yourself?_

_ "When you make a bad choice, you're only hurting yourself." Ten seconds before she kicked me out of my house, my mum said that to me. You don't forget things like that in a hurry, Si. And now I know how completely absurd that is. You didn't just hurt yourself when you murdered all those people, when you sold them out to You Know Who._

_ You hurt so many others._

_ You hurt Lily and James – of course. You killed them. They had to know, seconds before they died, that their best friend in the world had sold them out. But that's just the tip of the iceberg._

_ You hurt Remus, too, you know, like crazy. I talked to him the other day, met him in Hogsmeade. You have no idea of the state of him, Sirius. He's completely broken up over it. He can barely speak coherently. Kept muttering something about the moon, how nothing would ever be the same again, how his life was ruined forever. And he was crying. He couldn't stop crying. He tried to hide it but it didn't work._

_ And you hurt me, Sirius. Do you know how hard it is for me? Did you ever think, before you sold your BEST FRIENDS OUT TO You Know Who, "Oh, you know, Andromeda's going to cry herself to sleep every single night after this because she'll know the one person she loved and trusted and would trust with her LIFE is a huge horrible traitor, so you know, I better not do it"? DID YOU EVER THINK?_

_ I _highly _doubt you did._

_ I want this to all be a dream. I want you to knock on my door and give me your laugh like a bark and tell me I was having stupid dreams again. And sometimes I want to rewind, and I want you to be a little boy again, coming over to my house and throwing a rock at my bedroom window in the middle of the night and tell me what horrible thing your mother's done today. I want to be able to hug you close and sing to you._

_ If you were with me tonight, I'd sing to you just one more time. _

_ If you were with me tonight, I'd hug you._

_ If you were with me tonight, I'd probably be laughing, not crying._

_ If you were with me tonight, I wouldn't be writing this letter._

_ If you were with me tonight..I would SLAP you._

_ Sirius, I hate you._

_ I love you so much I hate you._

_ It's horrible, Sirius. Why can't you just be with me tonight and that would be that?_

_ I bet there's no one in Azkaban to sing to you, Sirius._

_ I bet there's no one in Azkaban to comfort you, Sirius._

_ I bet there's no one in Azkaban to wipe your tears, Sirius._

_ I bet there's no one in Azkaban to help you, Sirius._

_ You are hurting yourself, aren't you?_

_ God, I hate you so much._

_ God, I love you so much._

_ Why'd you have to do it, Sirius?_

_ Why?_

_ I can't say anything more to you except that at the bottom of my heart, I still think that you're innocent._

_ But I'm wrong. Aren't I, Sirius?_

_ If you were with me tonight, you'd tell me._

_ Too bad you aren't, huh?_

_Love from,_

Andromeda


	2. Chapter 2

Years later, there was a knock on Andromeda's door.

_Who could it be? _She thought vaguely. "Just a moment," she called. She wiped her floury hands on her apron and hurried to open the door.

When she saw who it was, she just about fainted.

She fell forward into Sirius Black's arms, and he hugged her, and for a moment they were both crying and laughing at the same time.

Andromeda suddenly realized a mass murderer was at her doorstep. She drew back and slapped him across the face.

"Meda," he whispered hoarsely. "I swear. I didn't do it."

Something in his voice made Andromeda believe him. He explained his story well into the night, adding all the details and putting in where he went wrong and what he could've done to prevent it. He didn't have to. Andromeda believed him.

"I knew it," she whispered as he finally drew a breath. "I knew you were innocent. At the back of my – not my brain, my brain was too stupid to catch on, but my heart – at the back of my heart I knew it." She laughed. She laughed and laughed. "I was right."

Sirius smiled wryly. "I forgot how much you loved that." She slapped him again, playfully this time.

_You're with me tonight, Siri.._

Then she remembered a letter, stuffed at the back of her closet from years and years and years ago.

"Remember when I used to sing to you?" she said softly.

Sirius tipped his head back and thought for a moment, his grin fading into a thoughtful but not unhappy expression. "Yes," he said quietly. "yes, I do." He grinned again, although it looked vaguely forced. "Gawsh, Andromeda, how on earth d'ya remember things like this?"

Andromeda smiled. "I have my ways," she said softly.

Sirius laughed. She'd forgotten his bark like laugh. She'd forgotten everything about him. She leaned closer to him and ran her hand across his face. It was dirty and his eyes were haunted, his nose had a smudge across it and there were tear stains so deeply engraved in his face they would never disappear, and there was a mysterious scar running across his long nose, but he was Sirius, her Sirius, and he was back with her.

"Siri.." she whispered, and for the first time he didn't scowl.

"Aaaaaaaandddiii," he whispered, and then without meaning to she was crying and crying. He hugged her tightly, and she noted without really seeing that tears were rolling down his own face.

"You're home," she whispered.

"I can't stay, you know that," he said sadly. "I probably can't even visit. But when they clear my name – when they find out about that rat – then I'll come here everyday. Every single day."

"Promise?" whispered Andromeda.

"Promise," said Sirius, and Andromeda was reminded of herself.

_Flashback_

"Why'd'ya have to _go, '_Meda?" a nine year old Sirius asked sadly as Andromeda hurried around her room, throwing her things into her trunk.

"Hogwarts, Sirius, remember?" reminded Andromeda gently. "But I'll come back. I'll come back, maybe not for the holidays, but in summer. And then we can put toads in Bella's bed, and splash each other, and catch fireflies. We'll catch fireflies every night. Every single night."

"Promise?" whispered Sirius.

"Promise," said Andromeda.

_End Flashback_

"And then we can put toads in Bella's bed," said Andromeda, unable to resist, "and splash each other – "

"And catch fireflies," Sirius finished, and the light came back into his haunted eyes as a true Sirius smile broke across his face. "We'll catch fireflies every night. Every single night."

"And we did, that summer," said Andromeda softly. "Remember? We'd go out every night with that jar that was magicked to be big as outside on the inside, and plain normal on the outside – "

"I couldn't get enough of that," laughed Sirius. "'Big as the outside on the _inside, _Meda! Isn't that the funniest thing_ ever?_'"

"We probably caught tens of millions that summer," said Andromeda softly. "Remember what you used them for?"

Sirius smiled. "I never admitted it, no matter what Bellatrix said," he said. "Not a nightlight..I just liked to watch them flash."

"Of course."

"No one believed me, did they?"

"None of us except Reggie."

Sirius sucked in his lips. "Regulus," he said quietly. "He isn't my Reggie anymore."

Andromeda touched Sirius's wrist. "He was only a child," she said quietly. "He did what he thought was right. He was never as brave as you, Siri. His judgment was bad, but _he _wasn't bad."

"He joined the Death Eaters, Meda," said Sirius angrily. "He joined _the Death Eaters._"

"Maybe he had a good reason," said Andromeda quietly.

"A _good reason?" _uttered Sirius. "He _joined the Death Eaters."_

Andromeda touched her cousin's arm. "You murdered your best friends."

"I didn't – "

"If Regulus was alive," stated Andromeda, "in his eyes, you would've. Never judge, Sirius. Thinking that you were guilty was the most enormous mistake of my life, do you know that? It cost me years of misery. Today I learned not to judge people. Because what you think isn't always true."

"I _highly _doubt the person who joined the Death Eaters was my brother's evil twin," snorted Sirius.

"Sirius," said Andromeda, tinging on irked, "if someone told me that it was really Peter who killed the Potters and that he could turn into a rat and he blew up the street and cut off his own finger and everything else that happened, I would've thrown them out and told them to come back when they were sober."

Sirius bit his lip. "I just..." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Meda, I don't..I never would've..and now..I suppose..but what if..and I don't want to get my hopes up..you know?"

"No, I have no idea," said Andromeda frankly, "but I kind of see where you're coming from."

"How?"

"It was how I felt," said Andromeda simply, "when I started to think that maybe you were innocent."

Sirius sighed. "Things were simpler in Azkaban," he joked, and he and his cousin laughed.

"Speaking of Azkaban," Andromeda said after a pause, "how in the world did you get here?"

"Bit of that charm that makes you look like a chameleon," explained Sirius, leaning his chair back on two legs. "'Course, it's not all that reliable, I had to argue every single member of the Order separately for three weeks before convincing them that I simply had to come see you..after convincing them of _that _they wanted me to drink half a dozen potions and wear twelve cloaks or something..but in the end Dumbledore said this would be okay for a quick nip down the memory lane with my favorite cousin."

Andromeda laughed like bells. "Oh, Sirius, I can't believe you're here," she moaned happily, reaching forward once more, feeling his face carefully, checking that he was entirely real. "You're real, you're real...I was so...Siri, you can't imagine how it was for me...I sobbed for years...and years...every night.."

"I'm here now, Meda," he murmured, hugging her like there was no tomorrow, because for all he knew there wouldn't be, but that didn't matter, because there was a today. "I'm here now, here with you, here tonight."

* * *

><p><em>The End<br>_


End file.
